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It's been almost a year since Pandora Premium -- the company's on-demand streaming service and competitor to Spotify and Apple Music -- first arrived. Ever since launch, Premium has only been available on mobile phones, but today it'll finally have a player in the web browser, as well. And while it's been well over two years since Pandora purchased the dearly-departed Rdio, those who used the old service will find Pandora's web service very familiar.

Spotify apparently has plans to launch another music app -- one that's more like Pandora's original service, or like a radio, if you will. The company has begun testing a playlist-based app called "Stations" for Android, and according to its Google Play listing, it plays music as soon as you launch it. You'll have to "like" tracks in the app so it can create personalized stations for you, but like Spotify's main app, Stations learns what music you prefer the more you listen. All you need to do to switch stations and automatically start playing other music is to scroll through your playlists.

As a musician, knowing how your songs are performing on streaming platforms is important. Spotify brought real-time stats and demographic information to a dedicated app for artists this past October, while Pandora and YouTube have had similar dashboards for a while now. Finally, Cupertino is catching up with the beta launch of Apple Music for Artists, a dashboard that lets users drill down into various statistics on song performance from now to as far back as 2015, when the Apple Music service launched.

Xfinity X1 users have been able to access the free version of Pandora, but now they're also getting support for both Pandora Premium and Pandora Plus. In an update available now, users will be able to get Pandora music going on X1 just by saying "Pandora" into the X1 voice remote and Premium subscribers can search and play any song, album, station or playlist they wish. To get to a specific song, they'll just have to say something like, "Play 'Santa's Coming for Us' by Sia on Pandora." X1 also now supports Pandora Plus, which lets subscribers listen to stations ad-free with additional skips and replays. The update also includes a simpler sign-in experience and a new display design.

It's been just over a year since Pandora first gave an official glimpse of its on-demand music service, meant to go up against the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. And while there's a lot to like about Pandora Premium, it hasn't exactly shaken up the status quo -- most people use the free service to build stations based on songs, artists and genres they like. But the company has a somewhat intriguing strategy to give those free users a taste of premium.

Today, Pandora is announcing that free users can get a sample of the on-demand service by watching a 15-second video ad. After watching that ad, free users will unlock the full premium experience for a limited amount of time, which means they'll be able to queue up any song they want, build playlists from Pandora's catalog, check out the company's new curated playlists and more.

If you use both Pandora and Sonos, there's a pretty useful update coming your way today. Pandora's apps for iOS and Android now let users directly control music streaming to your Sonos speakers. The Sonos controller app is still required to set up Pandora, but once that's done, users can select songs, playlists and stations directly through the Pandora app to play on their speakers.

For years, the main feature of Pandora's music streaming service has been stations generated from the company's vast Music Genome Project. A system that analyzes songs based on 450 different attributes, it helps Pandora build stations of songs that the company claims go together better than what other services offer. But, the company finally launched a full-fledged, on-demand service earlier this year, and now it's expanding the kinds of music it curates for users.

Today, Pandora Premium is launching Featured Playlists, a set of 250 curated playlists across the categories you see on pretty much every other music service out there. Pandora says that in addition to genre-focused playlists, it's also building ones for moods, activities, specific artists and "cultural moments."

Starting in 2018, Billboard will change the way it counts streaming music for its charts. Right now, the way it works for the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart is that there are two tiers for streaming music: on demand (where you can select what you listen to) and programmed (think Pandora). On demand listening is given a greater weight than programmed. But next year, the company will add another tier. Paid subscription services (such as Apple Music and the paid tiers of services like Spotify) will have more weight than purely ad-supported listening and unpaid tiers of subscription streaming services.

If you watched in envy as your Spotify-loving friends controlled their Sonos systems from within the music streaming app, hoping Tidal and AirPlay 2 would follow, there's reason to celebrate. The audio firm has announced support for those services as well as Pandora. AirPlay 2 won't be out until next year, but Pandora and Tidal will be available before the end of 2017. Meaning, you'll be able to control a multi-speaker system via your streaming app of choice rather than Sonos' own kludgy application. It's the latest step Sonos is taking to provide a platform-agnostic experience, where almost everything works with its hardware regardless of who's providing the music.

It's been a rough year for Pandora. The service followed its relaunch as an on-demand streaming service by looking to get bought, but soon closed shop in Australia and New Zealand and got sued by PayPal to boot. Finally, CEO Tim Westergren stepped down, leaving the company he co-founded in 2000. But Pandora has found his successor in Roger Lynch, the founding chief executive of Sling TV.

The music industry hasn't been too enamored with YouTube, what with all the unsanctioned content on the video site. Now that Google is planning to merge Google Play and YouTube into one music service, however, it's time to start fixing that awkward relationship. YouTube's head of music, Lyor Cohen, took the first steps toward reconciliation at the New Music Seminar in New York City this week, with a panel geared toward the lack of ad revenues and how the music industry can be more supportive of streaming services.

While Pandora got a nice infusion of cash from SiriusXM a few weeks ago, there's bad news for the streaming services' users down-under. The company just announced that its co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren is stepping down and, according to Billboard, Pandora is ending its service in the only two non-US markets it currently operates in: Australia and New Zealand.

The rumors were true: Pandora CEO Tim Westergren has announced that he's stepping down from the company he co-founded 17 years ago. He'll remain in the leadership position while the company searches for a replacement. President Mike Herring and marketing chief Nick Bartle are also leaving, the streaming music company says. While Pandora isn't clear about why the executives are bowing out, it comes after efforts to "refocus and reinforce" the firm by selling its ticket business and taking a $480 million cash infusion from SiriusXM. In other words, it's likely looking for fresh blood as it adapts to a changing digital music landscape.

Pandora has had a busy year so far and now, there are rumors circling around co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren. According to Recode, Westergren will be stepping down from his current role. There are currently no candidates to replace him, so he'll likely remain in the CEO slot until someone new is chosen.

Pandora made the leap to on-demand streaming back in March after building on the pieces Rdio left behind. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that the company was looking for a buyer. It didn't find one, but it was able to attract a big investor: SiriusXM. The satellite radio company announced today it's investing $480 million in Pandora, adding a portion of the à la carte music streaming service to its catalog of audio options. The deal gives SiriusXM a 19 percent stake in the company.

Pandora Premium has been out for a few months now, and today the company is adding a notable feature from Rdio, the music-streaming service Pandora purchased in the fall of 2015. AutoPlay does just what it says -- when you finish listening to an album or playlist, Pandora will keep right on playing. But rather than looping the album or playlist, Pandora will generate a queue of songs based specifically on your listening habits. Those songs will also be tailored to the music you were just listening to so it hopefully matches up well with what you're in the mood to hear.

SoundCloud keeps expanding its influence to stay competitive with the likes of Spotify and Pandora. It borrowed $70 million last March to enhance its push into new markets, added new tiers to its subscription service, brought Chromecast streaming to iOS and continues to update its offerings with listener-friendly updates like "The Upload." Now, the audio service is coming to Xbox One with a new app for subscribers to SoundCloud Free, Go, or Go+. A beta version of the app should also be available on Windows 10 PCs and tablets by the end of the week.

Back in October, Pandora donned a new look and launched a new logo that looked very familiar to anyone who's ever used PayPal before. Now the online payment system is taking Pandora to court, accusing it of ripping off its iconic logo to ride on its popularity. It had some savage words for the music streaming service in the lawsuit it filed, telling the court that Pandora decided on a logo design similar to its own to overcome "serious commercial challenges that threaten its very survival." After all, the filing reads, "Pandora has no obvious path to profitability" as a streaming website known for free service, and it also faces "overwhelming competition from Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music."

Pandora bought Ticketfly in 2015 in a bid to cover more aspects of your music experience, but it's already having second thoughts. Bloombergsources hear that Pandora is considering selling Ticketfly in case it doesn't find a buyer for the entire company. In other words, it'd return to its focus on streaming music -- important when its on-demand Premium service is still getting off the ground. Pandora has declined to comment, but it's not hard to imagine why the ticketing business might be on the chopping block.

According to a new report from CNBC, Pandora is currently in the process of closing a $150 million investment from hedge fund and private equity firm KKR. As part of the deal, a KKR executive will get a seat on Pandora's board while two current members will step down, but until the deal closes in 30 days, the company is positioning itself as an attractive target for acquisition.

"Having secured a significant financial commitment from KKR to strengthen the Company's balance sheet," outgoing Pandora board member James M. P. Feuille said in a statement, "we have positioned the Company to evaluate any potential strategic alternatives, including a sale, in the 30 days before the financing is set to close."

While Feuille believes Pandora's future is "exciting," a potential sale could bring a lot of uncertainty for Pandora die-hards and scare off potential new users -- some of whom might like to know if the service will still be around at the end of their 30-day free trial. On the other hand, just because Pandora is making itself available doesn't necessarily mean the company wants to get out of the game entirely. If an attractive buyer doesn't come through, the KKR investment is still a healthy infusion of cash for a popular service that is consistently among the top grossing music apps in the App Store.

Finding streaming content on your iPhone is getting easier. Google announced on Wednesday that the newest update to its search app on iOS devices will enable users to find TV shows, movies and songs on streaming services. That includes iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Video, Google Play, YouTube and Spotify.

It's been just about a month since Pandora unveiled its attempt at building full-fledged, on-demand streaming music service. Aside from a handful of bugs, the big problem with Pandora Premium was that it was invite only. That's changing today: Pandora Premium is now available for anyone to try. Like just about every other streaming music service, it'll run you $9.99 per month and the app is available for Android and iOS (a web version of Pandora's on-demand service is coming soon).

Paralysis of choice is a real problem, and to help mitigate it, Google has updated the app formerly known as Chromecast. Next time you open Google Home, you'll see a new "Listen" tab at top of your device's screen. A post on The Keyword blog says that the idea is to pull in curated playlists from apps like Google Play Music and Spotify into one place so you always have the perfect soundtrack to beam to your connected speakers. Fewer choices, more freedom. Pandora and the semi-redundant YouTube Music apps are pulled into the fray as well. All told, it's a minor update, but it shows Google's ambitions for the app: becoming a hub for all your digital media needs.

Rdio wasn't the first streaming-music service I used, but it remains the one that I've used the longest. A combination of smart discovery, social features and excellent design (something most music services still can't nail) made it a great option, but it couldn't attract subscribers the way Spotify could. Eventually, Rdio shut down -- but at the same time, Pandora acquired its assets, which the company used to build Pandora Premium. Today that service is finally ready to launch.

As announced in December, Pandora Premium is a combination of traditional radio stations as well as an on-demand competitor to Spotify and Apple Music (with the same $10-per-month price, to boot). Both of those rival services have been rapidly gaining subscribers as of late. The question Pandora has to answer is not only whether Premium can compete but also whether there's enough of an audience for it in an already crowded market.

Spotify dipped its toes into podcasting in 2015 by adding pre-existing programs to its lineup. Now it's getting into content creation and rolling out its own shows. The company is launching three original podcasts, and it says that's just the start.